Why should Franklin Graham have all the fun?… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Atheists and Asbos 
Apr 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Paul Sims and I consider the punishment of Harry Taylor.… Read the rest
Why feminism must embrace reason and shun religion
Apr 28th, 2010 | By Amy ClareWhen I was four, I was an angel in the school nativity play. I had wanted to be the angel Gabriel, but my teacher had gently informed me that Gabriel was a boy. Mary had already been cast, so the only parts left for other girls were generic angels. I was disappointed but then I realised, what did Mary do exactly? It seemed to my young mind that all she did was have a baby; it was the baby that everyone was interested in, and the baby was a boy. I soon learned that all the good parts to play in this story belonged to the boys, and with every passing school year and corresponding nativity play, I felt more … Read the rest
The Christian churches are the conscience of our country
Apr 27th, 2010 10:01 am | By Ophelia BensonLawrence Lessig notes that the pope told victims of priestly rape in Malta last week that the church “was doing all it could to investigate abuse accusations and find ways to safeguard children in the future.”
But it’s not, Lessig says. In fact it’s doing the opposite. It’s defending a New Jersey statute immunizing charities against negligence even if their employees acted “willfully, wantonly, recklessly, indifferently — even criminally.”
… Read the restWhat was truly astonishing was the appearance of the New Jersey Catholic Conference in the case. As its Web site explains, the conference “represents the Catholic bishops of New Jersey on matters of public policy,” because “the Catholic Church calls for a different kind of political engagement: one shaped by the
The church is campaigning to block compensation
Apr 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It is lobbying hard against statute of limitation reform.… Read the rest
Believers don’t believe in God
Apr 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Oh and by the way new atheists are bad and wrong.… Read the rest
Believers without belief
Apr 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The idea is going viral: Michael McGhee, Theo Hobson, Andrew Brown all claim that belief is practice.… Read the rest
On dryness
Apr 27th, 2010 8:08 am | By Ophelia BensonKenan Malik points out that fundamentalism is an idea, not a biology.
… Read the restSecularism and fundamentalism are not ideas stitched into people’s DNA. They are not born so. Secularist ideas and religious beliefs are like any values: people absorb them, accept them, reject them. A generation ago there were strong secular movements within Muslim communities and fundamentalism was a marginal force. Today secularism is much weaker, and Islamism much stronger. This shift has been propelled not by demographic trends but by political developments. And political developments can also help reverse the shift.
Kaufmann doesn’t deny any of this. But, he insists, nothing can stop the inevitable demographic triumph of the fundamentalists. Why? Because ‘we inhabit a period of ideological exhaustion’.
Kenan Malik on “Eurabia”
Apr 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Secularism and fundamentalism are not ideas stitched into people’s DNA. They are like any values: people absorb them, accept them, reject them.… Read the rest
Open Democracy on Fred Halliday
Apr 26th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
For 40 years his knowledge of global politics and forensic analytical skills were in the service of rational argument and universalist political values.… Read the rest
Fred Halliday 1946-2010
Apr 26th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
His twenty plus books and his wide ranging, powerful essays and journalism provided a constant source of inspiration.… Read the rest
A sufficiency of delight
Apr 26th, 2010 11:07 am | By Ophelia BensonGrayling’s reply to Gray is a much better read.
Anxious to appear original while in fact pushing a familiar counter-Enlightenment line, Gray has often entertained us with his assaults on logic and historical fact, each time repeating the two tenets of his faith, one acquired from Isaiah Berlin and the other from his Sunday school, namely, that we are condemned to live with the conflict between irreconcilable goods, and that we owe everything of significance in human achievement (not, he gloomily adds, that there has been much) to religion.
Concise, sly, cutting, and funny – also accurate. Gray is extraordinarily repetitive and predictable. I knew what his “review” would say before I read it. “Gray has often entertained us” reminds … Read the rest
Grayling replies to Gray
Apr 26th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Anxious to appear original while in fact pushing a familiar counter-Enlightenment line, Gray has often entertained us with his assaults on logic and historical fact.… Read the rest
The well thinkings
Apr 26th, 2010 10:26 am | By Ophelia BensonJohn Gray makes a familiar point.
SEEING THEMSELVES as fiercely independent thinkers, bien-pensants are remarkable chiefly for the fervor with which they propagate the prevailing beliefs of their time.
Prevailing where? Prevailing among whom?
Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill’s godson and a scion of one of England’s great political dynasties, exemplified this contradiction throughout most of his life. British philosopher A. C. Grayling can now be counted amongst his number.
Okay – he means “prevailing among people who think similar things” – which is a tautology. He’s pointing out that independent thinkers (fierce or otherwise) are not usually so very independent that they think things that no one else anywhere thinks. Right. Well we knew that, actually. If you’re … Read the rest
Eugene Volokh on Harry Taylor’s sentence
Apr 26th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
An appalling restriction on freedom of speech; not a content-neutral prohibition on leafleting in particular places: the conviction was based on the content and viewpoint of the speech.… Read the rest
John Gray Reviews A C Grayling
Apr 26th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The inevitable ‘Hampstead dinner party’ is cited.… Read the rest
Be Quieters v atheists
Apr 25th, 2010 12:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonIt reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny line – “Of course you know, this means war.”
This means war. The grotesque punishment meted out to Harry Taylor might as well be an official government announcement that atheists have no rights.
It is a common accusation that the “new” atheists are bullies who gang up on poor innocent bystanders like Mooney and De Dora and other Be Quieters.
Well – not so fast. Let’s pause and consider. Who exactly is bullying whom?
Which is the majoritarian view? Which is the conventional wisdom? Atheism? Hardly. No, the majoritarian conventional wisdom is, at the very least, that religion deserves an almost infinite amount of “respect” and that any atheist who falls short … Read the rest
Put out an APB for Cardinal Bernard Law
Apr 25th, 2010 11:09 am | By Ophelia BensonHitchens gently suggests that the pope should be questioned like anyone else.
… Read the restHis apologists have done their best, but their Holy Father seems consistently to have been lenient or negligent with the criminals while reserving his severity only for those who complained about them.
As this became horribly obvious, I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at all, was his calm reply. If His Holiness tries to travel outside his own territory—as he proposes to travel to Britain in the fall—there is no more reason for him to feel safe than there was for the once magnificently uniformed General Pinochet, who had passed a Chilean law
